THE DIAZ-ALEJANDRO PRIZE HAS BEEN AWARDED TO
ORAZIO ATTANASIO
April 25, 2016
The Díaz-Alejandro Prize was
established by the Latin American
and
Caribbean
Economic
Association (LACEA) to honor the
memory and contribution of Carlos
F.
Díaz-Alejandro,
and
to
encourage high quality research on
economic issues relevant to Latin
America.
Every two years, the prize is
awarded to an individual who has made a significant contribution
or a body of contributions to the economic analysis of issues of
interest to the region. Previous Prize recipients include Edmar
Bacha, Jere Behrman, Guillermo Calvo, Rudiger Dornbusch,
Sebastian Edwards, Arnold Harberger, Hugo Hopenhayn, and
Carmen Reinhart.
Over 30 candidates nominated by members of the Association
were considered for the 2016 Prize. To reach its decision, the Jury
assessed the overall impact of the candidates' research, its
relevance for Latin America´s development problems and the
candidates' commitment to the Association. Mr. Orazio Attanasio
was chosen as the winner.
Mr. Attanasio holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.
He is currently Professor at University College London, Research
Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER),
Senior Fellow at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis
of Development and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic
and Policy Research. In 2001 he was elected Fellow of the
Econometric Society and in 2004 was honored as Fellow of the
British Academy. He is the current President of the European
Economic Association, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for
Fiscal Studies, where he co-directs the Centre for the Evaluation
of Development Policies (EDePo).
His research has focused on development economics, household
consumption and saving behavior over the life cycle, risk sharing,
labor supply and housing markets. In recent years he has worked
on the impact and design of conditional cash transfers, on
education choices and on early childhood development
interventions, as well as on the measurement of subjective
expectations in Latin America and in other developing countries.
Mr. Attanasio’s academic interests have a great deal in common
with those of Mr. Carlos F. Díaz-Alejandro, in particular his
impeccable analytical rigor and his commitment to evidencebased policy interventions to deal with the most pressing
development problems in Latin America.